


Bit Weird

by orphan_account



Category: Broadchurch
Genre: F/M, First Time, it was a dirty weekend away after all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-11
Updated: 2015-12-11
Packaged: 2018-05-06 04:16:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5402672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set during S02E04. This fic provides a different take on what happened when Hardy and Miller shared a bed in that hotel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bit Weird

‘Bit weird,’ Miller said, turning to Hardy with a slight grin.

Irritated and exhausted, Hardy did not reply. The smile slipped from her face.

‘You never answered me, did you ever have sex with Claire Ripley?’

‘Go to sleep, Miller.’

He rolled onto his side, away from her, and stared into space. His tired eyes saw through time, and he watched Claire smile at him as sunshine fell slantways upon her freckled face. The memory made him ache, but not for the reason Miller suspected.

He closed his eyes.

*

His vision swam, interrupted by familiar scenes of a sloping green bank, nodding bluebells and a rushing river. He fell, and his lungs filled with water.

Distantly, he heard a voice.

‘Hardy.’

He slipped further beneath the surface. The current was strong. Too strong to fight. His lids half-closed. He was so tired, and the burden in his arms was so heavy…

‘ _Hardy!’_

His eyes snapped open. A woman with curly, flyaway hair and piercing brown eyes was looming over him. She was fumbling desperately at his collar, exposing his soaked skin to the air, and stroking the damp hair from his eyes with one hand.

He stared vacantly, open-mouthed, at the vision. She was illuminated by a gentle golden glow that made a nimbus of her dark hair. He beheld her like a drowner gazing at the fractured sun through the chopping waves above.

His lips moved, and he uttered something.

‘Hardy!’ she said again, and slapped his cheek.

He heaved violently upwards, coughing and choking. At last he sucked in a gulp of air and dislodged the river from his lungs.

Miller – for it was her after all – sat back and sighed with relief. As he panted and wheezed, he became aware that she was straddling him. Her knees were on either side of his chest, and she was careful to prop all her weight on them to avoid restricting his breathing.

‘Thank God you’re all right,’ she said. ‘I thought you were going to die.’

Feeling weak and light-headed, his heart thrashing like a fish in a barrel, Hardy blinked.

‘What happened?’ he managed.

‘You started flailing about in your sleep. I thought you were having a nightmare so I tried to wake you up. Then you stopped breathing.’ She leaned over him and pressed two fingers to his throat, trying to take his pulse. He noticed she was shaking slightly.

He batted her hand away. ‘Get off. M’fine.’

‘Bullshit you are! How long has this been happening?’

‘M’ _fine_ ,’ he insisted. He propped himself up on his elbows, bringing his face close to hers. The action made her realise she was still straddling him. She reared back, burning with embarrassment, and clambered off him.

‘I – uh – I opened your shirt to cool you down,’ she explained as he sat up. ‘You were so feverish… you burned when I touched you.’

Hardy did not reply. His breath still came in shudders. Swinging his legs off the side of the bed, he stared at the floor and grimaced, then fumbled with the rest of the buttons on his shirt. His whole body was drenched with sweat.

He pulled the shirt off with a sharp yank, feverishly tugged his undershirt over his head, and staggered half-naked to the window.

Miller’s cheeks burned bright red. When she saw him fumble with the latch, she went to join him and opened the window, admitting a blast of cold air. Hardy shivered all over as the breeze touched his bare skin, and leaned heavily on the sill, sucking in gulps of oxygen.

Miller left and returned with a towel from the cupboards. She handed it to him, and he wordlessly began to wipe the beads of sweat from his torso.

As Hardy buried his face in the towel, Miller couldn’t help looking at his body. He had a slim, muscular build, with well-defined abdominal muscles and ropey arms as taut as the rigging on a ship. He lowered the towel from his face and looked at her. She immediately lowered her eyes.

‘How long has this been happening?’ she asked quietly.

‘A while,’ he sighed. ‘S’not always this bad.’

‘Is it your heart?’

He did not reply.

‘You’ll catch a fever if you stand in the cold,’ Miller said, with customary practicality. She could already see goosebumps forming on his rapidly cooled skin. ‘Come back to bed.’

He did as she bid and sat down on the bed once more. She pulled the window shut, only leaving it open a crack to admit fresh air, and joined him.

They stared at the floor.

‘Nightmares,’ Hardy muttered after a time. ‘I get nightmares. Dream I’m drowning. I wake up and I can’t breathe.’

‘Pippa?’ she asked softly.

He nodded and rubbed his upper arm in agitation. ‘I still… I still feel her. The weight of her. The feel of the water. And I can’t…’

‘How often?’

‘More frequently now.’

‘Have you spoken to anyone about it?’

‘No.’

‘You should. I can give you the name of a counsellor if you -’

‘For God’s sake,’ he said in agitation. ‘I don’t need a bloody shrink in my head.’

He stood up and stomped to the bathroom. Miller followed him. ‘Well, you should at least be getting help for your heart condition,’ she argued. ‘Have you been seeing a doctor?’

‘Leave it _alone_ , Miller.’

‘No. You’re going to kill yourself if you keep going like this! You’ve almost died on me once before, you think I want to deal with that again?’

He shut the bathroom door in her face. She made a half-angry, half-frustrated groan, and kicked the bottom of the door in annoyance. He waited until her shadow beneath the door retreated before he turned to the mirror. His own grey, wan face stared back, and his solitary reflection seemed to double his loneliness. Turning on the tap, he splashed himself with cold water and tried to scrub the dried sweat from his skin.

He looked up again and watched the water roll and bead down his face. He looked like the ghost of a drowned man. Shuddering, he dried himself off.

When he emerged, he found Miller rummaging through his bag. ‘What the hell are you doing?’ he demanded.

‘Looking for your pyjamas,’ she snapped back. ‘You’ve got a heart condition, you get nightmares so bad they give you trouble breathing, and you decided to sleep in a suit. The most constricting outfit possible!’

She threw a soft grey t-shirt at his head. ‘Put that on,’ she ordered. She continued to sort through his bag. ‘Do you have some trackpants? Shorts?’

‘No.’

‘Why the hell didn’t you pack pyjamas? Do you not own them or did you just forget?’

His mouth set in a hard line. ‘Forgot,’ he muttered.

She rocked back on her heels and looked at him. ‘Seriously?’ She began to laugh. ‘All this time I thought you were just being your broody bullshit self, Mr. I Sleep in a Suit Because I’m Too Tough For PJs.’ Her whole body shook with laughter.

‘It’s not funny.'

‘Yes it is. Do you want to borrow my trackpants, then? I’m sure I packed them…’

‘No.’ He tugged the shirt over his head.

‘All right. Just sleep in your boxers then.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘I’m assuming you do wear boxers?’ She pulled out a spare pair from his bag and waved them at him.

‘Put those down! For God’s sake, Miller!’

He tried to shoo her away from the bag and she fired the boxers at him using the elastic. They hit him in the face. As they slowly fell away, his impassive countenance was revealed by degrees, stony as that of one quietly contemplating either murder or suicide or both.

‘Serves you right,’ she said, standing up. He gathered all his belongings and shoved them back into the bag, sighing at the careless way she had unfolded his perfectly stacked clothes.

Miller threw his little blanket off and tossed back the sheets. ‘In,’ she said. ‘Come on.’

He froze like a deer in headlights. ‘In the bed?’

‘Yes.’

‘With you?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’d rather sleep in the car.’

‘Oh, thanks very much!’ she huffed.

‘I don’t mean like that,’ he said hurriedly. ‘I mean…’

‘You mean you’d rather have a heart attack in a car than share a bed with me. Well, tough shit, because as long as sleeping is a deadly experience for you I’m keeping you close to me. Now get in.’

‘It’s not a deadly experience…’ he began in exasperation.

‘Oh, it totally is. Are you gonna take your trousers off?’

‘ _No._ ’

‘Will you stop blushing like a schoolgirl! I’m not going to jump you! I just think having as little restrictive clothing as possible would be better for you, and since you won’t wear my trackpants…’

He clutched his waistband possessively.

‘Fine.’ She threw up her hands. ‘Keep them on. Have a heart attack in your sleep, what do I care?’

It was a peculiar trait of Miller’s that the moments she professed to loathe him the most were the moments she actually cared for him the most.

She got into bed and pulled the covers up to her chin. The sheets remained invitingly open on his side. With a sigh, he got in with her.

‘Can you get the light?’

He did. Darkness descended. A breeze stirred the curtains and the room breathed. Hardy shivered, acutely aware that nothing separated him from Miller’s soft, warm body now but their own clothing. He recalled how she had looked when she was straddling him, and the feel of her when she gently rested on him, the touch of her hand when she’d stroked his brow. It had been so tender, so loving.

It made him ache.

He noticed that Miller was crammed against the opposite side of the bed, laying as flush against the edge as she could, trying to put as much distance between them as possible. He mirrored her endeavours, feeling guilty for making her uncomfortable.

‘Are you sure about this?’ he asked. ‘I can always go on the outside of the covers…’

‘No. If it happens again, I want to make sure I catch it.’ She bit her lip. ‘I almost didn’t before. I was half-asleep. If I hadn’t…’

‘They happen sometimes, Miller, I would’ve been fine.’

‘You don’t know that!’ She stared at the ceiling and knotted her hands together on the outside of the covers. ‘I know how bad they can get,’ she said quietly. ‘I get nightmares too. Maybe not quite as bad as yours, but still… suffocating.’

He glanced at her. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he gradually began to discern more detail in her shadowy profile. Her eyes gleamed like dewy flowers.

‘What about?’

‘Killing Joe.’ She sniffed. ‘Murdering him. Kicking him to death, or beating him with a hammer. Sometimes… strangling him. For some reason it’s always me who stops breathing in those dreams.’

He had not expected that answer. ‘I’m sorry,’ was all he could say.

‘I want to kill him.’

‘I know.’

‘And it scares me, because it makes me wonder… what if I’m the same as him?’

‘You’re not.’ There was a sudden heat to his words. ‘You’re nothing like him, Miller.’

He thought he could hear her crying. ‘I hate him,’ she whispered. ‘He took _everything_ from me.’ She wiped her nose and gave a weak laugh. ‘That’s pretty selfish of me, huh? Beth’s son is murdered and here I am thinking about myself.’

‘You’re allowed to grieve for what you’ve lost,’ Hardy told her. ‘Don’t feel guilty for it.’

‘You… you lost everything after the Sandbrook case.’ She turned her head towards him. ‘Tell me honestly. Does it get better?’

He looked at her. ‘It hasn’t yet,’ he said. ‘But I’m hoping it will.’

There was something about the darkness and the intimate act of sharing a bed that made it easy for her to bare her soul. Perhaps it was the hangover from her time as somebody's wife; the dark, comforting safety of a marriage bed was where she was accustomed to revealing clandestine fears and worries; it was like a reflex to do so, even if the man who now lay on her husband's side of the bed was not, in fact, her husband. Not even a friend, really. And yet...

‘I’m scared,’ she confessed.  ‘I’m so scared I’ll be alone forever. I miss my family. My friends. I even miss…’ she bit down on what she was going to say, and said instead, ‘I miss being married.’

‘I find it's always the little things you miss the most,’ Hardy reflected, and this faint detour seemed to confirm that he shared her fear. ‘Dropping your kid off at school. Hearing them talk about all the shenanigans they got up to when you get home from work. Even someone making a cup of tea for you, or kissing you goodbye…’

Miller sniffed. ‘God, we’re a pathetic pair, aren’t we?’

‘Least we have each other.’

‘There’s a comforting thought.’ She stared at the ceiling for a long moment. ‘I had sex with someone,’ she blurted. ‘When Claire and I went out drinking. I brought a bloke home with me.’

Hardy tried to fight down the sting of jealousy he felt. ‘Oh? So… are the two of you…’

‘It was just a one night stand. My first ever. I don’t even remember his name.’

She seemed so miserable, he had to ask, ‘were you drunk when it happened?’

He saw her nod in the darkness. ‘I didn’t want to, but Claire insisted… and I was just so lonely… God, I was so lonely…’

‘Want me to track him down?’ he tried to joke. ‘Maybe rough him up a bit?’

He’d hoped to make her smile, but she was too downcast. ‘I feel dirty,’ she whispered. ‘I feel… _tainted_ , all over. From him. From Joe. I spent the last thirteen years having sex with a _paedophile_ …’

She shuddered all over, as though cockroaches were crawling across her skin.

‘Who could ever love me now?’

Hardy’s mouth was dry, and he did not have the courage to speak the answer that hung on his lips. His poor heart swelled and twisted like a fish on the end of a harpoon.

She went on, ‘even Brian turned me down.’

‘Dirty Brian?’ Hardy said incredulously, and hearing the joke name made Miller laugh, just a tiny bit.

‘Do you wanna know why?’ she went on, a touch mischievously.

‘Why?’

‘Because he has a girlfriend.’

‘So that’s an obstacle, but you having a husband wasn’t?’

She giggled, and the sound gave him wings.

‘Want to hear about my dating disaster?’ he asked. 'Long as we're sharing.'

Miller rolled onto her side and faced him. ‘Go on,’ she said, her eyes shining.

‘I asked out Becca Fisher.’

‘No!’

‘Yep. She turned me down flat.’

‘When did this happen?’

‘Ages ago. When I was still staying at the Trader’s.’

‘She’s going out with Paul Coates now. Lucy told me.’

‘The vicar? Seriously?’ He sounded genuinely miffed.

She smiled. ‘You got turned down for a priest.’

‘Just when I thought it couldn’t get more embarrassing…’

‘Why did you ask her out, anyway? You must’ve known about all the stuff with her and Mark…’

‘I know, but she was… kind. Flirty.'

‘She flirts with everyone. She flirted with me first time we met, until I pulled down my hood and she realised I wasn’t a bloke.’

He stared into space. ‘The vicar? Seriously?’ he said again, and passed his hand over his face.

‘For the record,’ Miller said. ‘I think you can do better than her.'

‘And you can do better than Dirty Brian.’ He rolled the ‘r’s in Dirty Brian’s name across his tongue like marbles, his lip curling in distaste. ‘And that creep from the pub. If you ever see him point him out to me. I’ll impound his car.'

‘You’re not on active duty.’

‘I can call in a favour.’

Miller was silent for a moment. ‘Thanks,’ she murmured.

‘For what?’

She didn’t reply. He rolled on his side to face her, and they lay curled like twins, mirror images of each other, gazing into each other’s eyes.

‘So did you ever have sex with Claire Ripley?’ Miller said abruptly.

‘For God’s _sake,_ Miller,’ he groaned, rolling onto his back and covering his eyes with his arm.

‘What? I’m only curious! And as long as we’re protecting this woman, I want to know what your relations are with her! I think I deserve to know!’

He mumbled something.

‘What was that?’

‘No, all right? No, I have never had sex with her.’

‘Did you want to?’

‘Miller,’ he growled in warning. Seconds went by, then: ‘No. No, I didn’t.’

‘Why not? She’s beautiful.’

‘I suppose. But… we shared some very intense experiences. And it was too soon after Tess. Besides,’ he went on, ‘she’s not really my type.’

‘Then what is your type? Blonde Australian hotel owners?’

He frowned deeply. ‘No. No, I like… I dunno, I like women I can talk to. I’m not very good with people, but… you know when you meet someone and suddenly you can spend all your time with them, and it’s like you’ve known them forever?’

Faintly, she said, ‘Yeah.’

‘Smart women,’ he went on. ‘Just… someone who’s…’

He realised he had rolled onto his side once more, and was staring directly at Miller.

‘Someone who can put up with me, I guess,’ he muttered. ‘Someone who loves me.’

She pulled both her hands under the covers and slid one along the mattress. Her fingers drew short of Hardy’s body and splayed out, soaking in the warmth that radiated from him and permeated the sheets.

‘It’s what I miss most about being married,’ she said quietly. Her fingers curled against the mattress. ‘Not the sex, just someone to say, “I love you.” Someone who loves you.’

He agreed with a grunt. He was close enough to feel Miller’s breath. When had she gotten this close?

‘The sex is nice too,’ she admitted, ‘when you’re in love, anyway. I don’t really see any point to it if I’m not in love, but when I am, it’s…’

He shivered.

‘Who did you mean before?’ she asked, picking at a thread she’d found on the sheet.

‘Mean when?’

‘When you were choking and I was trying to get your collar open, you said something.’

The back of his neck prickled. ‘What did I say?’

‘You said, “I love you.”’

A mortified silence descended. He was grateful she could not see him blushing in the darkness.

‘No I didn’t,’ he said.

‘Yes you did. You were so out of it, I thought you must’ve been dreaming about Claire.’

‘I don’t remember saying it.’

‘Well you did. Was it your wife?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t remember.’

He shifted uncomfortably and adjusted his arm. His fingers brushed against hers and he glanced up, startled. She did not flinch from his touch as she usually did, but remained still, her eyes downcast, thinking.

‘What about the other day?’

‘Hmm?’

‘You came to the door half-asleep. I told you Claire had agreed to see Ashworth and you said, “Miller, I could kiss you.”’

He swallowed hard. His Adam’s apple was trembling.

‘Was that just the heart attack talking?'

‘No.’ He laid his hand on the mattress and found hers. Their fingers curled together, like a flower bud closing at sunset.

‘Why did you say it?’

With one hand holding his, the other reached for his face. She stroked his cheek and traced the outline of his lips with her thumb. He shivered and closed his eyes.

‘Because,’ he said, ‘I…’

They drifted closer to one another, crossing that crucial yet invisible dividing stroke down the centre of the bed. Darkness lay upon them like a thick sable blanket, muffling stark reality and turning what had been a crude caricature of husband and wife into something that looked - and felt - all too real.

She kissed him. Her hands wandered to his chest and spread across his pectoral muscles. He moved closer again, gathering her in his arms, and the kiss deepened.

Just as their hips touched, she pulled away and broke the kiss with a gentle pop.

‘That was…’ she began.

‘A bit weird?’ he panted.

‘Nice.’

Her hands curled into fists against his heart. He dared to hold her a little tighter and kissed her again. She traced his torso lightly with her fingers, running up and down his body. Pushing one hand up his grey shirt, she stroked the polished, straining muscles she found there, and nestled her fingers in his chest hair. Starved for physical intimacy for so long, the effect of her touch was cataclysmic. He shook all over, his muscles radiating heat and pent-up energy, sending jolts to his core.

At length her hand drifted to his back and she broke the kiss so she could hold him. She buried her head in the alcove beneath his chin. He closed his eyes and stroked his thumb across her shoulder.

‘You’re warm,’ she murmured. She made circles on his back with her fingertip and he broke out in goosebumps. ‘You always seemed cold to me, but you’re so warm.’

To all the world, she appeared to be the fiery one, and he the cold one, but in truth there were measures of sun and shadow in both of them. He could be frigid, stony, unmoving; yet he also raged like a ship alight at sea, a conflagration consuming itself and collapsing inwards, threatening at any moment to be swallowed by the ink-dark ocean.

And she… she, for all her violent, warm passions was, to him, blessedly cool. She was the shade of an apple tree in high summer, a canopy of foliage to shut out the beating sun and give relief to molten limbs made exhausted by the day’s labours. She was relief and solace and comfort. In her shady arms he could rest, drink in the cool breeze and lay down the heavy, heavy burden that made him burn so.

A stab of yearning hit him, so hard it hurt. ‘Miller,’ he murmured. ‘I think… I should sleep on the outside of the covers. Before… we…'

She kissed him again. His protestations died and he bent his head to her, responding eagerly, his tongue parting her yielding lips. His fingers brushed at her breasts, finding the nipples where they hardened through the thin fabric of her shirt. Her hands tangled in his hair and a treacherous moan escaped her. He kissed her neck and nibbled on her collarbone, shoving his hands up her shirt to grasp her breasts with both hands.

She had not intended to go this far, but he was just so warm and so vital and...  _there._ His solid, masculine touch instilled a hot tremor in her heart that radiated throughout her body with every beat. She fisted the fabric of his shirt in her hands. She felt overwhelmed, inundated by sensation. There was so much desperation in the way they touched each other, so much misery and loneliness and loss colouring their frantic kisses, and so much unbearable tenderness. Some part of her mind pleaded for her to stop before it was too late, but she paid it no heed. It was an entirely different experience to that awful one night stand. Then, all outward forces had pressured her into sex, while she was screaming no on the inside. This time, everything inside of her said yes, while outward forces told her it was wrong.

But he felt right to her. Even with the trial and the accusation and Joe, and every other shitty thing that had happened, he felt _right_ to her. The sensation was akin to discovering the solution to a case after spending weeks staring hopelessly at a wall of evidence.

All it took was one shift in perspective, and everything was clear. He was that furtive answer she had sought for so long.

He pulled her shirt off and threw it carelessly aside, burying his face against her breasts and tasting every piece of skin he could reach. Her pyjama bottoms and knickers went next, peeled away by inexorable fingers.

‘Can I…?’ he asked, his hand splayed on the inside of her thigh, his fingers trembling just below the hollow between her legs.

She drew her leg encouragingly around him. ‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘Yes.’ She grasped his wrist and drew it upwards.

He buried his long, calloused fingers inside of her and kissed her with burning ferocity, until she couldn’t breathe.

‘I want you so much,’ he whispered. ‘I need you so much.’

The admission might have frightened her had a similar truth not been seared across her own poor heart. She twitched and clenched around his probing fingers, gasping gently as he rocked in and out, crooking to catch that sweet spot. He gained in confidence with every subtle moan and kissed her in fierce, hungry triumph when he won a loud cry from her.

There was such a wild, dying, drowning desperation to his caresses. For so long, everything he had desired and craved and wanted had been hovering just out of his reach. The consistent denials had made him give up wanting, and suddenly finding that this – that _she_ – was truly within his grasp, that she  _welcomed_ his touch, was almost unbearable. 

She rolled her body back and forth in time to his ministrations, her hips dragging sharply on his quick, clever fingers. His mouth was everywhere, nipping and laving, his other hand stroking her breasts, her back, her cheek, her belly. He was so hot and so close and so heavy. Every one of her senses – smell, taste, touch, sight, hearing – everything was filled with _him_ , until she felt like she was suffocating.

He savoured her lips, tangled his fingers in the wild crown of hair curling at her temples, and with the other hand cupped her heat and thumbed and rubbed her clitoris. She shivered, lifting her leg higher and drawing him in tighter. Clutching him with all her strength, her fingers digging into the taut muscles of his arms, she came with a shudder and a long, anguished moan. Her muscles fluttered and clenched around his hand, then stilled. He withdrew his fingers and murmured something into her ear, holding her close.

She panted and trembled. The warmth of his arms slowly revived her, as the warm cage of a child’s hands will revive a bird that has stunned itself on a window.

Presently, once she had recovered her breath, she ran her hand down to his waistband and tugged the button open. ‘Can you?’ she asked, lingering on the zip with the tip of one finger. She could already feel him, betrayed by a damp patch, long and hard and throbbing through the fabric.

‘Ahh,’ he said, a very slight spasm shaking him bodily. ‘Doctor doesn’t advise… but if it’s not too strenuous, I…’

She tugged the zip down.

‘Are you sure?’ he asked.

‘They’ve already accused us of it,’ she said, with customary practicality. ‘And we’ve come this far.’

He removed his trousers and she plunged her hand into his boxers, cupping his engorged, twitching cock in her hand. She began a slow, tugging motion.

‘Ah-h-h,’ he groaned. ‘Oh fuck…’

He was bigger than she’d expected, perhaps a little larger than average. Certainly bigger than what she was used to. She continued to tug, slowly, gently, then a little faster, trying to get used to the feel of him.

‘Ellie…’ he said. ‘I’m going to…’

He spilled over in her hand with a long groan.

‘Sorry,’ he muttered. He bent his damp forehead to her shoulder. ‘Sorry. I'm sorry. It’s been so long…’

‘It’s okay. It’s all right,’ she said, soothing him until the anxious crease disappeared from between his brows.

And she didn’t mind, honestly. Fucking him properly would have been too close to admitting she loved him, and she wasn’t ready to admit that to herself, let alone to him. A fumble between two sad and lonely people sharing a hotel bed was a lot easier to justify, both to herself and to the world.

Nevertheless, one small part of her did traitorously wonder what he would have felt like inside of her.

He lay on his side, panting, looking at her with reverent eyes. It was the same glazed expression she had seen when he’d stared at her and muttered the words “I love you.”

They had been for her, after all.

She withdrew smoothly to the bathroom, where she washed her sticky hand in the sink. She sat contemplatively on the toilet for a little while before she slowly crept back into the room.

He had retrieved her pyjamas for her. ‘Here,’ he said, holding them out to her and keeping his eyes respectfully averted as she pulled it on. ‘I… uh… that was…’

She got back into bed with him and they lay staring at the ceiling. ‘Bit weird?’ she suggested.

‘Nice,’ he murmured back.

She bit her lip. ‘I've been thinking... do you mind… do you mind if we don’t talk about this tomorrow?’

He sank heavily beside her. ‘Mistake,’ he muttered. ‘Got it.’

‘No,’ she replied. ‘Just… timing.’

She found his hand and stroked it gently.

‘Maybe when all this is over,’ she said, ‘the trial, the Sandbrook case… maybe then we can talk about this… us. But now…’

He understood. She rolled onto her side, away from him, and he rose up behind her, hovering uncertainly.

‘Do you mind if I...?’ He touched her waist gently.

She tucked her head against the pillow. ‘Go ahead.'

He settled in gladly and put his arm around her. Her hair tickled his nose, and he smoothed it down with one hand and kissed her head. They fitted together like stacked spoons.

‘Hardy?’

He grunted.

‘Promise me you’ll see someone about your condition.’

‘It’s fine, Miller.’

‘No. Promise me.’

‘I’m taking care of it.’

‘You’re so fixated on this case. I feel like you’re going to kill yourself over it.’ She caught the arm around her waist and squeezed. ‘I don’t want you to die.’

‘I won’t.’

‘I’ve lost everyone else. I can’t lose you too.’

‘You _won’t_ , Miller. I promise.’

‘Good,’ she murmured. ‘Good.’

After a moment, he smiled into her skin. 'You said you weren't going to jump me. You lied.'

Miller was not in the mood. 'Go to sleep, Hardy,' she said.

He closed his eyes.

Blessedly, his sleep was dreamless.


End file.
